by Dov Kornits
“Banjo Paterson wrote his most famous song in Winton,” says Vision Splendid director Mark Melrose about “Waltzing Matilda”. “In “Clancy of the Overflow” [Clancy was Jack Thompson’s character in The Man From Snowy River] he uses the term ‘vision splendid’. There are a lot of things like the landscapes in and around Winton, that truly are a vision splendid.”
Mark is explaining why they call this festival, located in the Queensland town of Winton, about as far away from Alice Springs as it is from Brisbane, The Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival.
“It’s a typical Outback town, population of about 900 to a thousand,” Mark continues. “Normally very dry. The Open Air cinema, one of only two operating in Australia, is something you have to see while in town. I’m really keen to see The Drover’s Wife there this year. Because some of those night scenes, the sky will just keep going forever over your head.
“You’ve also got the Australian Age of Dinosaurs, you’ve got the Waltzing Matilda Center. Winton’s the birthplace of Qantas; it’s got plenty of things to do around the place that’s for sure.”
And, unspooling between June 24 and July 2 this year, the annual Vision Splendid film festival, the only event 100% dedicated to Australian content and located in our glorious outback backyard.
Launched in 2014 after Winton served as the location for Ivan Sen’s Mystery Road, the festival is now an emerging destination event as well as a hub for filmmakers.
“We work very closely with Tourism Events Queensland as well as Screen Queensland to drive the tourism side of it. We quadruple the population every year. The large portion of that, probably 45% of the audience is the grey nomads. Over the last few years, we’ve had younger families traveling in cars and doing hotel hops as opposed to the caravan crowd.
“Everybody who comes literally falls in love with place,” Mark continues about the filmmaking side of things. “We’ve had a number of film scouting tours take place. The hard part is obviously the financials of getting a crew out there and how to support that. Because we know that all films will be made there if it was closer to Brisbane, but it’s not, so we’ve got work that we need to do around helping finding support for films to be made in the Outback.”
2022 will see the unveiling of a mural by a Koa artist telling the story of the local people, along with other initiatives such as a dedicated First Nations day, incorporating a Koa elder and a Dreamtime Storytelling Masterclass.
“We are very honoured to be closely aligned with the Koa people and to work with them on some of the things that they’d like to achieve.
“We’ve also got key industry people coming and talking about their roles. We’ve got Breakfast with the Stars, a silent film night, a short film competition, where students doing the Outback boot camp have their shorts featured as well as people who wish to submit an entry. We’ve got films such as 6 Festivals, How to Please a Woman, A Stitch in Time, and so much more.”
The Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival is on June 24 – July 2, 2022
